Penny Dreadful (Showtime) Season Finale 2014 Review “Grand Guignol”

Penny Dreadful (Showtime) Season Finale 2014 Review “Grand Guignol”

The overarching plot of Penny Dreadful‘s premiere season was a perfunctory bit of theatrics used to drive along the much more fascinating individual vignettes of the characters. The search for Mina was never as fascinating as the people who were doing the searching. Most shows would have been blind to the idea that their plot was not as interesting as their characters and continued to service shock value over genuine human emotion. Penny Dreadful is not most shows.

The grand finale took place, appropriately in the theater, the Grand Guignol, known for its horror shows. Vanessa’s vision led her and her comrades to the theater where the vampires had nested after their home on the ship was upset by Sir Malcolm and the boys. All season long the theater has been a prominent setting. In fact, outside of Sir Malcolm’s home, there was no other place we visited more frequently. The theater served as a home for Caliban, a setting for the romantic rendezvous’ of Dorian, Ethan, Brona and Vanessa, and as the place where the final act of our grand play unfolded.